/*
 * Copyright (c) 2015-2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package org.tribuo;

import com.oracle.labs.mlrg.olcut.provenance.Provenancable;
import org.tribuo.provenance.DataSourceProvenance;

/**
 * A interface for things that can be given to a Dataset's constructor.
 * <p>
 * Has a provenance method and a method to get the appropriate {@link OutputFactory}
 * for the {@link Output} subclass in these examples.
 * <p>
 * DataSources are used to do inbound ETL of data on disk or held externally.
 */
public interface DataSource<T extends Output<T>> extends Provenancable<DataSourceProvenance>, Iterable<Example<T>> {

    /**
     * Returns the OutputFactory associated with this Output subclass.
     * @return The output factory.
     */
    public OutputFactory<T> getOutputFactory();

}
